armer lives in a village to which he returns at night after his day's
work.

KOBE, OSAKA, THE INLAND SEA AND NAGASAKI

Kobe is regarded as a base for the tourist who wishes to make short
excursions to Kyoto, Osaka and other cities. It was established as a
foreign settlement in 1868, and has grown so remarkably during the last
ten years that now it exceeds in imports and exports any other city in
Japan. Kobe is one of the most attractive cities in the empire, being
built on a pretty harbor, with the land rising like an amphitheater.
Scores of handsome residences are scattered over the foothills near the
sea. Those on the lower side of the streets that run parallel to the
harbor have gardens walled up on the rear, while the houses on the upper
side of the streets have massive retaining walls. These give opportunity
for many ornamental gateways.

Kobe has many large government schools, but the institutions which I
found of greatest interest were Kobe College for Women, conducted by
Miss Searle, and the Glory Kindergarten, under the management of Miss
Howe. Kobe College, which was founded over thirty years ago, is
maintained by the Women's Board of Missions of Chicago. It has two
hundred and twenty-five pupils, of whom all except about fifty are
lodged and boarded on the premises. I heard several of the classes
reciting in English. The primary class in English read simple sentences
from a blackboard and answered questions put by the teacher. A few
spoke good English, but the great majority failed to open their mouths,
and the result was the indistinct enunciation that is so trying to
understand. Another class was reading _Hamlet_, but the pupils made sad
work of Shakespeare's verse. The Japanese reading of English is always
monotonous, because their own language admits of no emphasis; so their
use of English is no more strange than our attempts at Japanese, in
which we employ emphasis that excites the ridicule of the Mikado's
subjects.

Not far from this college is the kintergarten, which Miss Howe has
carried on for twenty-four years. She takes little tots of three or four
years of age and trains them in Froebel's methods. So successful has she
been in her work among these children of the best Japanese families of
Kobe that she has a large waiting list. She has also trained many
Japanese girls in kintergarten work. All the children at this school
looked unusually bright, as they are drawn from the educated classes. I